Luis Alvarez is a good example of how an "amateur" can have a profound impact on paleontology. The word "amateur" is in quotation marks because, before he turned his attention to the extinction of the dinosaurs, Alvarez was a highly accomplished physicist (in fact, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968 for his discovery of the "resonance states" of fundamental particles). He was also a lifelong inventor, and was responsible for (among other things) the Synchrotron, one of the first particle accelerators.
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| Luis and Walter Alvarez at the K-T Boundary in Gubbio, Italy 1981 (Photo: LBNL) |
In paleontology circles, though, Alvarez is best known for his late 1970's investigation (conducted with his geologist son, Walter) into the K/T Extinction, the mysterious event 65 million years ago that killed the dinosaurs. His theory--that the explosion of a large comet or meteor threw up tons of dust, blotted out the sun, and caused the earth’s vegetation to wither, with the herbivorous and then the carnivorous dinosaurs following in its wake--was greeted with skepticism at first, but is now accepted by most scientists.
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